Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Until Further Notice
Due to sucky circumstances beyond my control, this blog is closed until further notice. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Blog Action Day?
Yay environment....
Call me sociopathic, but I find it hard to care about the environment. At least, to the point of giving up the things I've become addicted to. My car, for instance. It's going on thirty years old if it hasn't passed it, it guzzles gas like there's no tomorrow and burning ethanol in it is guaranteed to fry its engine. And I can't replace it with something cleaner, since there is no money to do so. And the buses here are a joke - I'm not tying up two hours of my day in exchange for saving a little pollution. Especially not when the bus runs on diesel.
Car companies offering up hybrid engines, electric engines and ethanol friendly engines is all well and good, but poor bastards like me can't afford the prices. Oh well. There has to be some way of helping out our poor, ailing planet. Let's see, I could give up smoking...nah. I could recycle. Wait, I already do that. It's good to get a little cash back for those cans and bottles.
If I owned my home, I could insulate the hell out of it. Perhaps send off for some do-it-yourself solar panels. But I don't own my home. *Sigh*
I could write to my congressman and demand new and tougher laws on environmental issues. For what that would be worth.
But we should all do something and keep doing it. For the sake of the kids. I have to be honest: if I didn't have my son to worry about, I wouldn't care at all. But I do, so I do. And so should you.
Call me sociopathic, but I find it hard to care about the environment. At least, to the point of giving up the things I've become addicted to. My car, for instance. It's going on thirty years old if it hasn't passed it, it guzzles gas like there's no tomorrow and burning ethanol in it is guaranteed to fry its engine. And I can't replace it with something cleaner, since there is no money to do so. And the buses here are a joke - I'm not tying up two hours of my day in exchange for saving a little pollution. Especially not when the bus runs on diesel.
Car companies offering up hybrid engines, electric engines and ethanol friendly engines is all well and good, but poor bastards like me can't afford the prices. Oh well. There has to be some way of helping out our poor, ailing planet. Let's see, I could give up smoking...nah. I could recycle. Wait, I already do that. It's good to get a little cash back for those cans and bottles.
If I owned my home, I could insulate the hell out of it. Perhaps send off for some do-it-yourself solar panels. But I don't own my home. *Sigh*
I could write to my congressman and demand new and tougher laws on environmental issues. For what that would be worth.
But we should all do something and keep doing it. For the sake of the kids. I have to be honest: if I didn't have my son to worry about, I wouldn't care at all. But I do, so I do. And so should you.
Weird, I know, but...
If you haven't yet, you have to try this. It's that cool.
I don't know sometimes. I could be spending my time online doing research. Improving myself in some way. I could be writing or doing something else to earn some cash.
Instead, I find myself wasting time on things like the above. Ah well, seeing as how I don't have the real thing, that'll work. It's still amazingly therapeutic. Like playing Grand Theft Auto and going on a complete rampage.
It's my firm opinion that if we don't give in to these primitive urges (you know, sex, violence, politics...all that depraved stuff...) every so often, eventually we go berserk. The psyche can only take so much self-improvement, be it spiritual, academic, moral or whatever else before it rebels. This is true for my psyche, anyway. Maybe somewhere out there in Internet-land is some perfect person who can constantly improve themselves and never ever wastes a single moment...but I wouldn't bet money on it.
I don't know sometimes. I could be spending my time online doing research. Improving myself in some way. I could be writing or doing something else to earn some cash.
Instead, I find myself wasting time on things like the above. Ah well, seeing as how I don't have the real thing, that'll work. It's still amazingly therapeutic. Like playing Grand Theft Auto and going on a complete rampage.
It's my firm opinion that if we don't give in to these primitive urges (you know, sex, violence, politics...all that depraved stuff...) every so often, eventually we go berserk. The psyche can only take so much self-improvement, be it spiritual, academic, moral or whatever else before it rebels. This is true for my psyche, anyway. Maybe somewhere out there in Internet-land is some perfect person who can constantly improve themselves and never ever wastes a single moment...but I wouldn't bet money on it.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
On Faith
Tonight I find myself contemplating the vagaries of human nature as evidenced by Pastafarianism. For those of you unfamiliar with this concept (and too lazy to click the link), this is the belief that the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This was all started as a reaction to Creationism (or Intelligent Design, or whatever else you want to call it).
I found it quite amusing and quite an appropriate response. But then I thought further, which is usually my first mistake. And I realized that even a belief in evolutionary theory is still just a belief. We hide that by saying there is scientific evidence to back up the theory, but come on. How many of us have done all the necessary research to know how to work a carbon-dating machine? And of those few, how many have tested samples that can corroborate evolutionary theory?
It's still faith, it's just been switched from faith in the divine to faith in an institution.
And then I thought still further. I'm not bothered by taking things on faith - some things, to a certain extent. But from a cosmological point of view I feel more comfortable placing my faith in science than in God. Don't get me wrong, I'm as spiritual a person as the next guy and probably more so than most. It's just that science is a slow, plodding beast that is more inclined to skepticism than belief. Its (largely underfunded) ministers tend to be likewise slow and plodding, but inexorable. It is the job of science to answer questions and the questions engendered by those answers and so on ad infinitum. Which makes me a whole lot more comfortable than saying "God did it."
I found it quite amusing and quite an appropriate response. But then I thought further, which is usually my first mistake. And I realized that even a belief in evolutionary theory is still just a belief. We hide that by saying there is scientific evidence to back up the theory, but come on. How many of us have done all the necessary research to know how to work a carbon-dating machine? And of those few, how many have tested samples that can corroborate evolutionary theory?
It's still faith, it's just been switched from faith in the divine to faith in an institution.
And then I thought still further. I'm not bothered by taking things on faith - some things, to a certain extent. But from a cosmological point of view I feel more comfortable placing my faith in science than in God. Don't get me wrong, I'm as spiritual a person as the next guy and probably more so than most. It's just that science is a slow, plodding beast that is more inclined to skepticism than belief. Its (largely underfunded) ministers tend to be likewise slow and plodding, but inexorable. It is the job of science to answer questions and the questions engendered by those answers and so on ad infinitum. Which makes me a whole lot more comfortable than saying "God did it."
Saturday, October 13, 2007
What If...
From what I've read, life on Earth began when enough complex chemicals had enough energy pumped through them to start a self perpetuating chain reaction. Amino acids making proteins, which in turn made bacteria (something like that, anyway...) and so on.
I wonder how far away we are from the same thing happening on the Internet. You know, a power surge comes along, and all of a sudden your website is updating itself and complaining that you never spend any time with it because of your addiction to this so-called "real life."
Scary thing is, it's not all that far-fetched. All we are is a conglomeration of ever-simpler chemicals. Couldn't you get the same effect via a conglomeration of ever-simpler ideas? The odds against it happening by chance have to be as enormous as the odds of a chemical soup congealing into proteins, but couldn't it happen given enough interlinked information?
Kind of like the million monkeys hammering on typewriters and finally reproducing Shakespeare. I like it.
I wonder how far away we are from the same thing happening on the Internet. You know, a power surge comes along, and all of a sudden your website is updating itself and complaining that you never spend any time with it because of your addiction to this so-called "real life."
Scary thing is, it's not all that far-fetched. All we are is a conglomeration of ever-simpler chemicals. Couldn't you get the same effect via a conglomeration of ever-simpler ideas? The odds against it happening by chance have to be as enormous as the odds of a chemical soup congealing into proteins, but couldn't it happen given enough interlinked information?
Kind of like the million monkeys hammering on typewriters and finally reproducing Shakespeare. I like it.
Friday, October 12, 2007
National Lottery
Hmmm.....you know what this nation needs? It needs a national lottery. One where everyone is automatically entered every time they take taxes out of your paycheck. One dollar from everyone who is working for a living every week. Then they pull a name at random from those same tax files and that person gets the money. Tax free. You'd have to start paying taxes the next year on any money you had left, but for that year, you get all of the money and tax immunity.
I wonder how many people there are in the US who work for a living. It's got to be in the millions if not the hundred millions. I know I'd love to get that much money.
I know, I know: the love of money is the root of all evil, right? I don't want the money because I love money. I want the money so I wouldn't have to work anymore. Let me invest most of it, take enough of the proceeds for my family and I to live on comfortably and I'd give away the rest. Which, given how money tends to have its own particular sort of gravity, would end up being a job in itself.
I wonder how many people there are in the US who work for a living. It's got to be in the millions if not the hundred millions. I know I'd love to get that much money.
I know, I know: the love of money is the root of all evil, right? I don't want the money because I love money. I want the money so I wouldn't have to work anymore. Let me invest most of it, take enough of the proceeds for my family and I to live on comfortably and I'd give away the rest. Which, given how money tends to have its own particular sort of gravity, would end up being a job in itself.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Blogging Style?
| Your Blogging Type is Pensive and Philosophical |
 You blog like no one else is reading... You tend to use your blog to explore ideas - often in long winded prose. Easy going and flexible, you tend to befriend other bloggers easily. But if they disagree with once too much, you'll pull them from your blogroll! |
I guess it's true: the quizzes never lie.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Natural Selection?
Yesterday my son stood up for the first time. I'm not going to rehash what has been written about by far better writers than me about what a wonderful moment it was.
Rather, I intend to marvel that we as a species ever managed to make it out of the stone age. Honestly, people. How could a species as helpless and pathetic as we are in our infancy have ever managed to survive? It's the one flaw that sticks out at me in the whole theory of evolution.
By all rights, we should have been food for better, stronger beasts.
Rather, I intend to marvel that we as a species ever managed to make it out of the stone age. Honestly, people. How could a species as helpless and pathetic as we are in our infancy have ever managed to survive? It's the one flaw that sticks out at me in the whole theory of evolution.
By all rights, we should have been food for better, stronger beasts.
Woops
Woops. So much for night-night. Wow, this is addictive. More new stuff. MORE, I tell you!!!
*Ahem*
Anyway. Now there are links. Here are Delphi Forums, which is just too big and good of a place to miss out on, Helium, where you get paid to blather on about whatever, Planet Elder Scrolls, because Morrowind is the best computer game of all time, and Rum and Monkey just because.
Yeah. Just because. Go and see if you doubt me. I'll wait.
Now, the question in my mind at the moment is why people feel the need for religion. I wrote an article on this very topic at Helium, but that was just off the top of my head. What piques my interest is that even atheists tend to turn their non-belief into a religion. What is this driving need in us for something larger than the ordinary to give purpose to our lives?
Isn't the moment enough? Or is it the spiritual equivalent to living paycheck to paycheck? Hmm...there's an interesting metaphor. I wonder, can you invest in the soul? I've heard of feeding it and selling it, but investing in it?
Odd, the things that parade in front of your brain in the wee hours of the morning....
*Ahem*
Anyway. Now there are links. Here are Delphi Forums, which is just too big and good of a place to miss out on, Helium, where you get paid to blather on about whatever, Planet Elder Scrolls, because Morrowind is the best computer game of all time, and Rum and Monkey just because.
Yeah. Just because. Go and see if you doubt me. I'll wait.
Now, the question in my mind at the moment is why people feel the need for religion. I wrote an article on this very topic at Helium, but that was just off the top of my head. What piques my interest is that even atheists tend to turn their non-belief into a religion. What is this driving need in us for something larger than the ordinary to give purpose to our lives?
Isn't the moment enough? Or is it the spiritual equivalent to living paycheck to paycheck? Hmm...there's an interesting metaphor. I wonder, can you invest in the soul? I've heard of feeding it and selling it, but investing in it?
Odd, the things that parade in front of your brain in the wee hours of the morning....
Great
Well, here goes: according to the wiktionary, great is
Adjective
great (comparative greater, superlative greatest)
Positive great
Comparative greater
Superlative greatest
Very big, large scale.
A great storm is approaching our shores.
Very good.
Dinner was great.
Important.
Title referring to an important leader.
Alexander the Great
Hmmm.....I think in this instance, I was aiming at very good. I feel an urge to pull out my hair, as I'm faced with Pirsig's whole dilemma on "quality." Ah well, there's nothing for it but to soldier on. Night-night time now. More later as events warrant.
Adjective
great (comparative greater, superlative greatest)
Positive great
Comparative greater
Superlative greatest
Very big, large scale.
A great storm is approaching our shores.
Very good.
Dinner was great.
Important.
Title referring to an important leader.
Alexander the Great
Hmmm.....I think in this instance, I was aiming at very good. I feel an urge to pull out my hair, as I'm faced with Pirsig's whole dilemma on "quality." Ah well, there's nothing for it but to soldier on. Night-night time now. More later as events warrant.
Hmmm...
Not sure if this will work...and still haven't looked up great. Oh well. Here goes.
| You Are 28% Good |
 You try to do the right thing, but only when it works out in your favor anyway. You're not exactly evil or without ethics, but you could be going down a pretty dark path. You probably have good intentions. You've just gotten comfortable with acting the way you do. Knowing the difference between good and bad is half the battle. Acting like a good person is the hard part. You are also probably: A bit jaded and cynical about life's rules Right now you are on track to being: A petty criminal To be a better person: Help a friend in need, without being asked |
Hey! It worked! Whaddayaknow? Now I'll look up great.
Wow, here goes...
Okay, so this is the first post here....
You can almost hear the crickets in the background, huh?
Yep. It's gonna be great, I tell you. Great.
Speaking of greatness, what is it we mean when we say that? What is it as a quality?
Excellence, as I previously used the term? Size? Power? I don't know.
I'm going to find out, though. just as soon as I can dig up my dictionary. If I still have my dictionary. If not, I suppose it'll be back to the Internet Standby: the wikipedia.
You can almost hear the crickets in the background, huh?
Yep. It's gonna be great, I tell you. Great.
Speaking of greatness, what is it we mean when we say that? What is it as a quality?
Excellence, as I previously used the term? Size? Power? I don't know.
I'm going to find out, though. just as soon as I can dig up my dictionary. If I still have my dictionary. If not, I suppose it'll be back to the Internet Standby: the wikipedia.
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